Tag: Dana White

Note: This timeline of MMA’s history is extremely abridged for the sake of brevity. If you’re interested in the topic, Jonathan Snowden’s Total MMA and Shooters, and Clyde Gentry’s No Holds Barred cover MMA history in detail better than I ever could.

MMA History

19th century: Various mixed rules contests take place throughout the United States, ultimately morphing into what we now call professional wrestling. (Seriously, I can’t recommend Shooters enough for information about this phase of combat sports’ evolution.)

1898: Edward William Barton-Wright invents Bartitsu–a martial art combining boxing, judo, savate, and stick fighting and one of the first dedicated “mixed martial arts” in the entire world. This mixing of styles occurs 42 years before the birth of Bruce Lee, the so-called “father of MMA.”

1905: President Theodore Roosevelt conceptualizes MMA on a whim in a letter to his son, Kermit. “With a little practice in [jiu-jitsu], I am sure that one of our big wrestlers or boxers, simply because of his greatly superior strength, would be able to kill any of those Japanese,” he says in reference to watching a Japanese grappler submit an American wrestler named Joseph Grant.

1914: Judo ambassador and all around tough guy Mitsuyo Maeda arrives in Brazil. In the coming years, he’ll begin teaching the Gracie family judo techniques, planting the seeds for BJJ.

Early-mid 20th century:Vale Tudo competitions emerge in Brazil, and ultimately gain popularity. The Gracie family rises to prominence and enjoys success in these “everything allowed” contests.

HAHAHAHA, I know right? I could barely make it through that sentence myself. Dana White is and has always been an jackass with zero impulse control, so obviously, he used yesterday’s UFC 172 media day as an opportunity to hurl misogynistic insults Cyborg’s way like the professional that he is.

“When I saw her at the MMA awards, she looked like Wanderlei Silva in a dress and heels,” said White while his media cronies giggled in the background like a bunch of middle schoolers. I can’t blame them; they probably would’ve had their credentials pulled if they didn’t treat White like a Don from a 50′s gangster movie. “Wanderlei Silva in a dress, dats a good one, boss!”

But it was when White actually attempted to defend Rousey’s comments that the real standup act began…

“Fighting is in our DNA,” Dana White likes to maintain. It’s a universal action that everyone understands. If a fight breaks out, everyone stops what they’re doing to watch it. Fighting is raw, visceral, but somehow pure and sacrosanct. It has been part of humanity since the first caveman shot a double leg.

Except it’s not. Those lines we all swore were so true when we started watching MMA, the ones we cited as reasons for MMA’s inevitable (and rightful) ascent to greatness, are all bullshit. When a rerun of Mike and Molly draws more viewers than free fights, one has to question whether MMA will ever achieve the mainstream popularity fans and pundits have been anticipating for years now—unless an overweight Chicago police officer (no, not Mike Russow) and his wife are even more in our DNA than fighting.

“What happened was Wanderlei got hurt in that fight,” White said following Wednesday’s TUF Nations Finale. “He got double legged on the concrete and he hurt his back. He hurt his hand punching Chael in the head and he got injured.

“He couldn’t fight on time because he got hurt in the fight f—ing coaching a show. I’m done being angry now. I was angry when it happened. It’s just disgusting…

“There’s a bunch of idiots in the media saying, ‘That thing looks contrived,’” White said. [Ed. note: It's nice to see that Dana still reads CagePotato!] “It was far from contrived. That thing was a disgusting display of what shouldn’t happen, and if I was there it would have never happened…

Until yesterday, however, when MMAFighting managed to get ahold of the ever-elusive Stocktonian and pressed him on his current standing with the promotion. Diaz’s response was a rant against the current state of fighter pay so vivid and thorough that we’re still not convinced it wasn’t spoken through his anger translator:

I’m ready to fight but not for some funny money that they’re trying to give me. They can let me go or they can let me fight, but let me do something. They know I need to make some money. I feel like they’re just trying to keep me on the waiting list. I don’t even want to communicate through anybody. If they want to figure out what’s going on, we should talk. No one is contacting me. I’m just doing my thing. Training every day. I’m ready to fight tomorrow.

They need to be about more money. My contract is all f*cked up. I want to be paid like these other fighters. I’m over here getting chump change. At this point, they’re paying all my partners and other people I train with are getting real money, and it’s too embarrassing for me to even fight again for the money they’re paying me. So they can either pay me or let me go. I’m with that.

To the sane, she’s a potential money opponent for Ronda Rousey in a sea of female fighters who simply aren’t up to snuff. Holm is closer to Rousey athletically than most other women in MMA.

To the delusional, she’s the Woman to Beat Rousey™. This sentiment is great for selling a PPV, but let’s not kid ourselves. While Holm is head and shoulders above the division, Rousey is mountains above it.

Still, MMA fans like to speculate about such matters. And whenever a fighter like Holm wins a fighter–or a fighter like Cris Cyborg loses one…in a different sport–this speculation reaches a fever pitch.

Holm fought this past Friday at Legacy FC 30. Holm outclassed her opponent, Juliana Werner, throughout the fight and finished her off with a devastating head kick in the fifth round (check out the GIF via @ZProphet_MMA).

This is good news, isn’t it? Cyborg losing a Muay Thai fight erases all her credibility (we don’t actually think this but Dana White probably does), so Holm winning in such a devastating way must’ve impressed White, right?

The buzz surrounding former boxing champ turned MMA fighter Holly Holm has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks. Many have speculated as to whether or not Holm is the “huge announcement” opponent for Ronda Rousey that Joe Rogan previously hinted at, and her ongoing negotiations with the UFC seem to lend credence to this belief.

Of course, previous negotiations between Holm and the UFC have resulted in little more than a stalemate, with Holm’s manager, Lenny Fresquez, prematurely dubbing her “a franchise” among other ludicrous claims and earning the time-tested ire of Dana White. Things took a turn for the worst during yesterday’s edition of UFC Tonight, when White told Ariel Helwani that the negotiations between Fresquez were “not good at all” and that the UFC was “not interested whatsoever” in signing Holm.

At UFC 171, Johny Hendricks decisioned Robbie Lawler
in one of the greatest fights in recent memory. The two men traded punches, bled, and even smiled during their 25-minute brawl that saw Hendricks leave Dallas as the UFC welterweight champion…but nobody really cares about that.

The “morning after” discourse isn’t about Hendricks overcoming a perilous weight cut or about the implications of Hendricks being the first champ of the post-GSP era. It’s about two stars of a bygone era—Nick Diaz and Georges St-Pierre.